The obstacles
What good is owning a Maserati if you never get it out of the garage? For most of this season, the dribble drive motion has been all talk, no action. Opponents have employed just about every variety of zone or gimmick defense they could conjure to prevent the Tigers from driving the ball.

USC was effective using a triangle-and-2. Cincinnati clogged the lane with a sagging man-to-man that dared the Tigers to shoot jumpers. Siena tried a 2-3 zone. Pepperdine had an advantage in that its coach invented the offense; he played a zone and flooded the strong side with extra defenders. It's harder to drive against zone defenses because it means taking the ball into areas where defenders already are stationed, as opposed to racing past adjacent defenders.

"If you start matching up with them, let them drive on you, they're really tough to handle," says Fran McCaffery, Siena's coach. "This is the best penetrating team I've ever coached against."

The run of opposing zones is unlikely to change as the Tigers navigate the Conference USA regular season. If Memphis belonged to another league, greater opposing talent and coaching egos would keep most opponents rooted to man-to-man and they'd get plenty of chances before March to work on their system. But they don't. That means that while UCLA and Kansas and North Carolina run their regular attacks against quality opponents — and improve — Memphis will get better at attacking zones they might rarely see in the later NCAA rounds.

Memphis' excellent backup players provide solid opposition as the regulars practice this stuff every day, but it's not the same as performing under game conditions.

"It's frustrating, but it's kind of what we expected," Dozier says. "Guys are not going to come out and play us man-to-man. We're just too talented, too fast. We have to take it as a sign of respect."

The Tigers have all the respect they can handle. What they need is more work on their specialty. They understand the concepts as well as their coaches could hope. But it could be like learning a second language — if you don't use it, you lose it.

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Mark J. Terrill / AP

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